Is there a moment in history when a work receives its ideal interpretation? Or is negotiation always required to preserve the past and accommodate the present? The freedom of interpretation, Charles Rosen suggests in these sparkling explorations of music and literature, exists in a delicate balance with fidelity to the identity of the original work. Rosen cautions us to avoid doctrinaire extremes when approaching art of the past. To understand Shakespeare only as an Elizabethan or Jacobean theatergoer would understand him, or to modernize his plays with no sense of what they bring from his age, deforms the work, making it less ambiguous and inherently less interesting. For a work to remain alive, it must change character over time while preserving a valid witness to its earliest state. When twentieth-century scholars transformed Mozart's bland, idealized nineteenth-century image into that of a modern revolutionary expressionist, they paradoxically restored the reputation he had among his eighteenth-century contemporaries. Mozart became once again a complex innovator, challenging to perform and to understand. Drawing on a variety of critical methods, Rosen maintains that listening or reading with intensity - for pleasure - is the one activity indispensable for full appreciation. It allows us to experience multiple possibilities in literature and music, and to avoid recognizing only the revolutionary elements of artistic production. By reviving the sense that works of art have intrinsic merits that bring pleasure, we justify their continuing existence.

《古典风格：海顿、莫扎特、贝多芬》一书是近五十年以来影响力最大、引用率最高的音乐论著——没有之一（至少在英语世界）。该书出版于1971年，翌年即获得美国国家图书奖[National Book Award]，迄今仍是获得此项殊荣的唯一音乐书籍。 查尔斯•罗森的《古典风格：海顿、莫扎特、贝多芬》分为八个部分。前两卷是对18世纪音乐语言和古典风格的概貌总览，为后面更为具体的作品分析和批评提供背景和前提。中间五卷，分别对古典风格最有代表性的体裁和作品进行鞭辟入里的点评和剖析——海顿的弦乐四重奏、交响曲、钢琴三重奏，莫扎特的协奏曲、弦乐五重奏、喜歌剧，贝多芬的代表性钢琴作品和他最突出的风格语言特征，以及古典时期的其他音乐体裁如严肃歌剧和教堂音乐等。最后的“尾语”点明古典风格原则在舒曼创作中的瓦解和在舒伯特作品中短暂的回光返照。 在《古典风格》行云流水般的论述中，作者基于对古典时期音乐语言整体运作体系的深刻理解，针对维也纳古典乐派三大师的代表性创作领域和公认杰作逐一进行分析、论说、评判、解释和说明。罗森要向读者和听者指明，这些杰作之所以产生的风格前提和语言机制是什么，这些杰作的卓越性和审美价值究竟何在。